In this day and age of computers, security and monitoring has become a multi-million dollar industry. Protection against theft, fire and other hazards has become a need or a requirement for many. From commercial buildings to the single family house owner, computerized systems have been installed to help combat these problems. There are smoke detectors, motion detectors, shatter sensors and so forth on the market to enable the owner of the property to protect against particular problems or threats. All of these devices connect to a central control box to where the controller of the system is located. The control box monitors all the detection devices and alerts the appropriate individual as to the problem.
An industry has even grown out of monitoring the control boxes. Most security companies have an off-site central monitoring system that is first alerted as to the occurrence of a problem. The owner usually pays a fee for the monitoring service. When an event occurs, the central monitoring system can alert the owner or send out the company's own people to investigate.
The current technology allows only a one way transmittal of data, from the system to the central monitoring station. Furthermore, the current state of the art lacks the combination of a digital communicator and a remote communicator merged into a single device. Both of these elements allow the control box to report the events as they happen and additionally allow remote users to access the system for any number of reasons. Therefore, there exists a need for a single device that can easily be inserted into an existing alarm control box that allows the system to communicate to remote locations as well as allow remote location to initiate contact with the system.